Occupy Jail, Occupy Big Banks

We are submitting to the mug shots of an activist photographer. We are confessing to crimes against big banks in advance. So there is a pre-criminal condition that we share.

The disappearers come at us from two directions. Jail and big banks. So we try to shed double light. First, we feel the humiliation of the mug-shot, feeling the gaze of the security state, en route to the retinal shot and the strip search, the scramble to be represented legally, to be heard, to be free again. But then free to do what? Free to cause acute and articulate embarrassment, to destroy utterly the fake prestige of big banks. Will someone give me an Amen?

JPMorgan Chase is the Devil, Citi and Bank of America complete the trinity of Evil. Tops in climate-killing investments -- billions of profits for creating C02 emissions -- at the same time that they give the New York Police Department direct payments to keep the non-consumers (especially non-consumers of color) lost in the prison system. The Stop Shopping Church singers spend time in the Tombs, like most Occupy workers, behind bars with the folks who are there for a much longer time, in many cases with no idea why they are there and unsure about basic legal questions. A person can be late for something and take a short cut through the park and get caught in a sweep, god knows. The guns that stopped them were paid for by Chase, and their homes were foreclosed by Chase, and the air that we all breathe is poisoned by Chase. Here's an idea: When we get out of here let's take some radical songs into the posh hushed lobby of JPMorgan Chase!

Come violate the front porches of the Vampire Squids with a counter-drama from the Stop Shopping Choir. Over the summer months follow our campaign. We'll take the theatrical stage of the bank lobbies of JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America. The art section is full of emoting actors on stages, but does Broadway have any electrical charge left? Chase, Citibank and B of A -- their lobbies are the stages of the Lake of Hellfire. Wow! That's a show!

To shout "You put billions into C02 emitting industries!" in a bank lobby -- oh the echo comes back as the Devil's bad gas. Come with us behind the lines. Nothing -- nothing is scarier than a big bank lobby. Revolujah!